1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns devices for the storage and display of photographs and the like, and more particularly to photo albums.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Devices for the storage and display of photographs and the like have taken many forms. One form, commonly referred to as a photograph album, comprises a plurality of bound leaves disposed within an outer cover with photographs or similar objects mounted on the two planar surfaces, or display pages, of each leaf. The leaves within the photograph album are commonly made of either a stiff cardboard material or a flexible transparent plastic. In the latter instance, two sheets of transparent plastic are bound together to form a plurality of pockets into which photographs are inserted.
A number of means for mounting photographs on the album pages are employed with cardboard-type leaves. One of the most common mounting means involves taping or gluing the photographs to the display pages. Another common mounting means involves a small adhesive-backed device, called a "corner," having a triangular-shaped pocket to receive a corner edge of a photograph. Typically four "corner" devices are disposed over the corner edges of a photograph and retained on the display page by the adhesive backing on the "corner" device.
All of these adhesive mounting means suffer from a similar defect in that the adhesives employed dry out with the passage of time, enabling the photographs to fall out of the album. These mounting means further discourage the replacement of photographs mounted in an album since removal frequently damages or defaces the photograph and/or the display page.
Another mounting means employed in conjunction with cardboard-type leaves involves coating the entire album page with an adhesive substance which retains the photographs on the album page. A transparent plastic sheet is attached to the album page to cover the photographs and the album page and prevent adjacent album leaves from adhering together. While this approach does provide a good mount, it fails to provide a convenient "memo" area on which to place information pertinent to the stored photographs. The adhesive used in this approach can also change over time, either increasing the risk of damage to the photo when removed or allowing the photo to fall from the album.
The use of transparent plastic album leaves also suffers from a number of disadvantages. For example, the size and orientation of the album pockets are constant. An album designed to store and display a particular size photograph cannot store photographs in a larger format as may be subsequently offered by photograph film developing businesses. Photograph orientation is important since most commercially available photographs have a rectangular shape with the image displayed on the photograph usually having an obvious vertical (i.e., "up-and-down") orientation. The vertical orientation of the photograph may coincide with the longer longitudinal axis of the photograph or the shorter latitudinal axis, depending upon the orientation of the camera when the photograph was taken. Photographers will occasionally orient a camera sideways to avail themselves of advantageous picture framing situations. The photographer thus develops a collection of photographs having both longitudinal and lateral vertical orientations. Prior art transparent plastic album leaves typically provide only a single longitudinal or latitudinal vertical orientation, thus limiting the photographer's framing choices. While a few prior art transparent plastic album leaves have been produced with album pockets having both longitudinal and latitudinal vertical orientations, the number of album pockets per leaf with each orientation is constant and transparent plastic album leaves of this type cannot permit both longitudinal and latitudinal vertical orientation within the same area on a single album page. To avoid wasting album space, the photographer is constrained to having the remaining space in his album dictate the framing orientation of his photographic composition.
Transparent plastic album leaves also fail to provide a convenient memo area. Pertinent information may be written on the back of the photograph, but only at the risk of damaging the photograph since the writing ink may seep through to the image side of the photograph. Further, use of the back side of the photograph as a memo area reduces the number of photographs that may be conveniently stored in each leaf.
Thus, there exists a need for a more versatile photo album permitting the bi-direction storage and display of photographs on the same portion of a display page without employing an adhesive mounting means which also includes a convenient information memo area.